


breathe, come together, breathe

by dalekbarbie



Series: breathe, come together, breathe [1]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 22:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dalekbarbie/pseuds/dalekbarbie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'you do not annoy me,' spock says, and kirk realizes he'd rather sit in awkward silence with spock than just about anybody else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

\--it starts like—

An invisible blow, immediate and unexpected. Riga III is cold, empty, and at least one member of the away team has been waiting for some kind of monster to pop up out of nowhere and chase them into a cave where they’ll meet—well, lightning never strikes twice. Anyway. Even yet another frozen cave on a class H planet is a chance to stretch your legs and the feel of snow crunching down under your boots is a hell of a lot different than the bridge, the mess, the observation deck, Kirk thinks. His eyes flick over Sulu and Ensign Giotto (Kirk has taken to coming up with different cupcake-related names to call him, sometimes just in his head, sometimes out loud when he feels like being a dick. Today it’s ‘Rainy Day Cupcake,’ but no one needs to know that, definitely not) and then over to Spock, where they certainly don’t linger. 

Not for longer than it takes for his mind to register that something feels very wrong and when he opens his mouth to speak because when there’s something, anything, Spock is always the first one he tells even when there’s nothing to tell, he can’t say a word. Spock is turned away, he can’t even see the panic etched into Kirk’s face and just know. And then Kirk blacks out and can’t say a thing to anyone

He comes to, eyes fluttering open and fixing fuzzily on the too-familiar ceiling in sickbay. Kirk used to hate sickbay, but he doesn’t anymore because sickbay means whatever fucked-up sequence of events he’s managed to go careening into like the garrulous cannonball he can be, sickbay means he didn’t die. He sits up, frankly expecting crushing pain and at the very least a lonely bruised rib, and he’s surprised when he feels no pain. This is new, but there’s something about it he doesn’t like. He is given a gruffly-delivered clean bill of health (well, clean for him, which means he’s mostly fine but likely to stumble into disaster within, oh, the next twelve to fifteen minutes, there was a bet once on an away mission) so he’s released quickly. He half expects Bones to suddenly hypo him into unconsciousness after lulling him into a false sense of security, but Bones would never bother lulling him into a false sense of security. Still feels kind of weird, though.

Kirk heads to the bridge to relieve (probably) Sulu, who is ready to get the hell out of there by now, and since for once in his life Bones hasn’t even tried to confine him to quarters, he may as well work since he kind of has no idea what to do with himself when he’s not working anymore. The turbolift door slides open and he glances, eyes darting to his chair, to navigation, and over to Spock’s station. And then something really strange happens: he opens his mouth to ask Spock something, and no sound comes out. He stands there with Chekhov trying to look like he’s not staring at him and then Spock notices, his ‘quizically neutral’ expression abandoning him once he tries to speak and…can’t. Not to Kirk, anyway. Chekhov has stopped pretending not to gape and so has everybody else except Uhura, who is nothing short of masterful at subtly taking stock of a situation without looking like a busybody

“Lieutenant, you have the conn,” Spock says to Sulu, who nods and very warily heads over to the captain’s chair while Spock follows Kirk back toward the lift in wordless assent. The doors close behind them as the lift moves quietly and Spock stands with his hands folded behind his back, his brow slightly furrowed in what Kirk knows is an expression of deep concern, because he’s deeply concerned himself. He is inwardly freaking the fuck out and can only assume Spock is too, he’s just doing so really stoically. Bones will figure it out, Kirk tells himself, and things will go back to normal.

They don’t.

Three days later Kirk has had all the brain scans ever and Spock has been poked and prodded to a frankly alarming extent and it’s still happening. They can talk to everyone except each other and nobody knows why. Bones has spent considerable time communicating with anyone he can reach on Riga III and is doing everything he can, and everyone else is trying to go about things as normal. They mostly do, because they’re not the ones rendered selectively mute, and Kirk tries to put a kibosh on the pitying looks immediately because come on, nobody died or lost a limb or anything, why is everyone looking at him like he’s just been told he’s got a week to live? Even Cake Pop (he says that one out loud because it’s been that kind of week) gives him a sad look and that is just weird

Bones is working on it, and Kirk will wait patiently even though this whole situation is ten different kinds of strange, and he’ll get by. It’s not that bad, really, it isn’t.

An hour into alpha shift on day four, Kirk’s padd pings to alert him to a new message

I must admit, this situation has gone on longer than I would have expected. It’s Spock. Kirk hasn’t written him yet because when he tried, he felt a little like a twelve-year-old girl and he wanted to prove to himself that he is a big boy and doesn’t need to run every little thing by Spock. And God, it sucks

I know. I think Uhura’s getting tired of passing notes for us.

Spock doesn’t even play the “I do not understand your idiom” card, he knows as well as everyone else does that it’s awkward for everyone when the captain and first officer have to talk to each other in the most roundabout way possible. It is a marked difference from our previous method of interaction. Kirk makes a sound that’s halfway between a huff and a laugh and gets a look from Yeoman Rand, who only ever seems to need him to approve something when he’s being weird for a totally unrelated reason. She probably thinks he’s been hit in the head a few times too many and he is eventually going to make it up to her someday when he’s sure he is capable of functioning like a fully fledged adult

Spock has sent another message. I would not be opposed to continuing our weekly chess game despite present circumstances. Kirk waits a few seconds; for some reason he doesn’t want to seem overly eager in a PADD message. The chess is a new thing for them, a few months at most, and Kirk is still a little concerned that he will eventually drive Spock nuts so he tries to maintain an air of nonchalance from time to time. It usually doesn’t work, but he’s got another 4.5 years to try as long as Spock doesn’t run screaming (for a Vulcan, that’s probably a brisk angry stroll) away from him and his ship full of lunatics

They meet for chess, Spock arriving at Kirk’s quarters at precisely 2100 hours and not using their shared bathroom because that apparently violates his code of undue formality. He wears one of what has to be at least five different black turtlenecks that make him look like a really imposing beat poet—or the most terrifying possible Frenchman, and Kirk feels a little like a hobo in his gray sweats and a red T-shirt that says, in a terrible inside joke, ‘King Me! STARFLEET ACADEMY CHESS CLUB.’ Spock raises an eyebrow over it and Kirk counts that as some kind of small victory. Kirk makes Spock that terrible tea he likes while Spock sets up the board, deftly setting the pieces in place like he has many times before.

What they haven’t done before is spend time together in total silence. After an agonizing twenty minutes of not being teased about his tactics he’s about ready to move the board aside for easier headdesking because seriously, he would do just about anything to be able to say something to Spock. Quickly he goes to his desk in the corner and retrieves his PADD, and he sits back down at the little table they use for chess. Spock nods to the padd and back at Kirk and stands, coming back a moment later with his own clutched in the crook of one arm. This is ridiculous, Kirk thinks, but he’ll take what he can get.

As lame as this whole thing is, at least I can’t annoy you by being all illogical this way, Kirk types, a self-deprecating smirk on his face

You do not annoy me, Spock responds, and Kirk realizes he would rather sit in awkward silence with Spock than talk to just about anybody else.

\--it starts like this.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spock reads Vonnegut. Things are bound to change.

\--so it goes—

Thirty-three days into their five-year mission, Spock played chess with his captain for the first time. He remembers it afterward as having been a puzzling experience, and he doesn’t realize why for some time. (He also doesn’t understand why, when all else in his sphere of existence can be quantified and measured precisely, matters of time and feeling pertaining to James Kirk cannot be pinned down with a number or a single word. He finds this out later.) After their first game, one he won by a worryingly narrow margin, the captain permitted him to peruse his collection of real paper books, some passed down from his mother and father, some of which he acquired himself. 

This moment was not his first experience of the real person behind the man James Kirk presents to the world, but it was the first one he noticed. From then on, he could not help but notice. 

Spock was persuaded to borrow a book described to him as “it’s Vonnegut, Spock, it’s gonna change your life. Just trust me.” He does take the book, holding it awkwardly at the crook of one arm, and does not really intend to read it. One thing Spock learns quickly is that the desire to know and understand a person is far more powerful than his own set timeframes and what he does recognize as his own stubborn tendency to, as human as it is, want to be right. 

Spock does not remember the book until after an away mission goes wrong in a way no one could have anticipated. Upon embarking on a study of the ice caves of Riga III, Spock bags several artifacts for further study. Kirk, who insisted on accompanying the away team, who insists on accompanying Spock everywhere he possibly can for no discernible reason, spends 42 minutes making an inordinate amount of noise. Spock turns down a snowball fight twice and is forced to give Ensign Giotto what Nyota has informed him is termed ‘a look. The look’ to make this all stop. He bags a reddish-gold rock and does not think of it again until 4.2 days later, but during that time he is somewhat distracted. 

3.2 hours later he is at his station, reviewing Ensign Chekhov’s calculations regarding Riga III’s lone moon’s rate of orbital decay when the turbolift doors open and the captain returns to his post. Spock’s attention is no longer on Chekhov’s work at all, he is consistently distracted by the captain and has a theory this is related to the staggering amount of unnecessary noise Kirk makes going about his daily routine (he did sacrifice some of his allocated time in the astrometrics lab to begin a thorough study). He expects his remaining working hours to go on as usual regardless. 

They do not. 

He does not expect to be struck silent in the presence of only one person, whom he very quickly learns he has spent a significant amount of time speaking to. He has unintentionally been privy to the captain’s method of timing showers by singing, and he recalls one song that includes the line “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” Though the song may not have referred to the loss of a superior officer with whom the subject had grown accustomed to conversing on a frequent basis, its meaning registered nonetheless. 

Spock spends that evening in meditation and later in recreation room B, where he practices his lute and receives several glances from Nurse Chapel that he hopes are merely appreciative as he pretends not to notice. He is, after all, not actively seeking a romantic partner at this time and would hope to find one more well-versed in the unappreciated art of subtlety. 

When he returns to his quarters he is oddly restless. He does not require sleep at that time and has already completed his not-inconsiderable backlog of administrative work, and he finds himself at a loss as to how to spend his time. He goes to his comm unit, a question he had meant to ask the captain having occurred to him, before he remembers the unforeseen difficulty that has presented itself. He cannot simply ask anything, and this bothers him more than he would have thought it likely to. Spock goes to retrieve a PADD to finish reading a thesis he’d begun earlier in the week when he spots it: a weathered white and red cover to a paper book. He does not anticipate that James Kirk’s choice of literature will truly qualify as such, and most assuredly does not think it will strike a chord deep within him that most things, that most people, never reach.

He is, quite simply, very surprised.

For the next three days Spock busies himself with research projects and analysis of the samples retrieved from Riga III. Not because he does not wish to remain on the bridge any longer than necessary, he simply has been inundated with proposals from the science department that need his immediate attention. And most certainly not because he does not wish his mind to linger on what he is beginning to recognize within himself and in another, nor on Billy Pilgrim and birdsong. 

Spock takes several of the samples back with him to his quarters for further study after beta shift ends. On his way he is intercepted by Nurse Chapel, who relays Dr. McCoy’s communications with the colonists on Riga III to him in a manner that makes him only twice as uncomfortable as he was before. As he began to extricate himself, she noticed the small red-gold rock he had brought, still sealed in a specimen container, and began to blush. 

“That looks just like one of those little moonstones Roger brought me back from his trip to Risa. So pretty, but I wouldn’t touch that if I were you.”

Spock does not want to inquire into Nurse Chapel’s personal life any more than is absolutely necessary, but the Vulcan in him reminds him that the needs of the many (himself and his captain) outweigh the needs of the few, or the one, so he poses a question to Chapel and asks her why he should not touch the small, smooth rock. 

“Haven’t you seen one of these before? They’re charmed. They won’t do a thing unless you’re in the presence of someone you love.” She does something with her eyes that he can only describe as ‘simpering.’ 

“And if you are in the presence of such a person?” Spock brings himself to ask, a strange feeling settling in the pit of his stomach. 

“Well, I don’t really know,” Chapel admits reluctantly. “But there’s really only one way to find out.” Spock waits for 4.2 seconds before he turns and leaves, walking back to his quarters and only checking the empty corridor behind him once. 

This is a troubling development. 

On the fourth day after the mission to Risa III, the Enterprise is at warp two, traveling through largely empty space. Lieutenant Uhura is occupied encrypting a secure transmission, Ensign Chekhov is playing a game on his PADD with the helmsman and does not think anyone has noticed (Spock has,) and the captain is looking out the viewscreen with his typical practiced nonchalance. He turns toward Spock, unaware that Spock is looking at him, and his expression falters for a brief moment, and those few imprecisely measured seconds are enough that Spock recognizes the same weary longing that he has seen before, that he has ascribed as an expression directed toward others. And in that moment he knows that whatever a charm or some forgotten magic can do, it cannot fabricate the look in Kirk’s eyes or allow him to ignore this feeling within himself. Shit happens and it’s awful, but it’s also okay. We deal with it because we have to. Spock asks himself about the present moment, how deep it is, how much is his to keep. 

Then he sends the captain a message: I must admit, this situation has gone on longer than I had expected, and he is aware he means more than he says. 

I know, Kirk responds, I think Uhura’s getting tired of passing notes for us. 

In the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore? Spock asks, and Kirk visibly falters. It is a marked difference from our previous method of interaction. He makes a decision, and so it goes. 

They meet for chess at the appointed time and place. At first Kirk is unnaturally fidgety, visibly uncomfortable. Then he retrieves his PADD and Spock does the same, and Kirk makes a joke that since he cannot speak to Spock, he cannot annoy him by being illogical. Spock thinks he might not have seen the meaning of this statement were it spoken, were the quiet charges and currents between them buried under their words. His captain is not an inconvenience to him, a distraction, a troubling development to Spock because he annoys him. He is a distraction, a break in the customary precision of time because he is who he is and that is enough. 

You do not annoy me, Spock says, and he very carefully places his right hand over Kirk’s left, his long fingers coming to rest on the back of Kirk’s hand, and the touch is a moment in his life that is beautiful and surprising and deep and there he is, opening his mouth and saying it again. “You do not—“ is all he manages. James Kirk is very distracting.

\--And so it goes.--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story (and series) is un-beta'd, so please forgive any errors. Some of the lines Spock thinks are from Slaughterhouse Five, because he reads it in this chapter.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I ever wrote, and it'll be the first in a series of short installments set in the same universe. Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
